The Perfect Son
by Sephulbadis
Summary: Yazoo is all too aware of his shortcomings in service to Mother. How could she find any use for something like him? On the night before Reunion, Kadaj provides an answer.


Disclaimer: The usual. I don't own it, I am not making money from it, and I am a little pink worm from Tanzania. Enjoy!

The odd white trees outside their shelter gave off a faint phosphorescence at night. It reflected strangely from the pool outside, throwing iridescent flickers and indigo shadows over the seashell-shaped growth.

Inside the thing, in one of the high crenellated whorls, the brothers had lain down to rest. The box of materia Loz had recovered from their other brother, the strayed one, sat to one side with its lid open. It pulsed with dim light. Yazoo could hear the materia chime, faintly—human ears would have heard nothing at all. There were few other sounds, none of them out of the ordinary: Loz's deep, steady breathing, and the ripple of water outside as the Lifestream itself bled into the pool. From the side of the room Kadaj had chosen, there was the dry husk of labored breath and scuffing of blankets against the floor. Yazoo folded his arms over his knees and looked elsewhere. Kadaj was dreaming Mother's thoughts into the world. Everything was as it should be.

His brothers, in their way, were perfect. Yazoo knew that he was not. Tonight, close as they were to achieving Reunion, his thoughts kept him from relaxing into sleep. When Mother met him, would she look with joy upon him? Would she welcome him? It was hard to imagine she would.

Loz was immaculate in his pure strength, his childlike reason that unhesitatingly did Kadaj's will—Mother's will. He had been first out of the laboratory tanks, the first child of Mother's love after Sephiroth returned to her. She would undoubtedly embrace Loz. And she would embrace Kadaj. She sang her favor into him every night, and threw her dreams over him during the day. Kadaj's worth in Mother's eyes had never been in question.

Yazoo laced his long fingers together around his bare shins, narrow shoulders hunched under his blanket. He had been made wrong. His hands—knuckles crackled as he twisted them together—could blind, silence, or sicken with a touch. Creatures would drop unwillingly to sleep with a mere brush of his fingertips. These were a fighter's gifts. His hands were meant to be the hands of someone who used them to kill people, someone strong. He was not. His hands were a fighter's hands and his body was a shamefully fragile thing. Velvet Nightmare allowed him to keep his enemies at a distance, but it did not change the fact that he was a pathetic, poorly-constructed vessel.

He had been second out of the tanks. Making Loz must have tired Mother greatly, to leave so little of her strength for him. Yazoo imagined that she must have seen him growing there and wondered: _what could I possibly do with this?_

Kadaj's tossing had eased. There was a brief aquamarine gleam from the dim corner as his eyes opened, and Yazoo heard him sit up with a groan.

"Children," his younger brother breathed wearily. "She wants more children." He braced his back against the curved wall, and rubbed fiercely at his temples. Yazoo watched him in silence. _We're not enough, then._

"Of _course_ we're not enough," Kadaj snapped. "The entire planet is fighting us." He paused to roll his shoulders, one after the other. "But we have brothers everywhere. Sisters, too—imagine that."

Yazoo managed a narrow smile. Kadaj glared through Yazoo to the entire world that fought their work, that tried to stifle Mother's explosive growth. "They will come _here_," he decided. "Now. Tomorrow. Reunion is very, very close to us."

"Kadaj."

His brother refocused on him, luminous blue-green eyes dulled with fatigue and shot through with blood. Yazoo dipped his head, silver-grey hair sweeping in front of his face to hide it from scrutiny. Mother could look out of those eyes.

"…have we done well? Does she think so?"

Kadaj stared flatly at him. "We are her chosen children, Yazoo. We are her _thoughts_, wrapped in pure flesh. Nothing we do can be against her will. How many times have I told you?"

Yazoo nodded, his eyes drifting to the pond's eerie reflections cast through a gap in the wall onto the room's ceiling. The materia chimed softly.

"You don't _listen_," Kadaj scolded, settling down in his nest of blankets again. "Come here."

Yazoo rolled to his feet, padded silently across the room, and knelt reverently at his younger brother's side. Kadaj's assurance soothed him somewhat, as it always did. Nothing would ever contradict the evidence his own body provided—that he was a failed attempt to make a worthy son—but if he could serve Kadaj, and by doing so serve Mother, he would. It might be enough.

"I need to sleep," Kadaj said. It was an order.

As though Kadaj were thin glass, or ice, Yazoo smoothed his palm carefully over his brother's forehead. It was warm. Almost immediately the luminous eyes sank closed, and within seconds Kadaj lay relaxed, untroubled by visions, his soft breathing matching Loz's. Yazoo returned to his own blankets.

He was a failure. Because he was a failure, Mother had made Kadaj. That thought comforted him, enough to send him drifting toward sleep. He had been necessary, to show Mother how to make the perfect son.

He slept. Reunion was very, very close.


End file.
